Guide to Building a HTPC, Workstation and Server - Page 614

Hi, does anyone have issues or fix for overscan/underscan from ATI card to HDTV/Pojector?

I am using ATI Radeon 5670 via HDMI to AVR to Epson 8100 projector and HTPC image is about 20% smaller. thanks

Anybody got recommended configs for madVR/LAV on a laptop? Would a i5-2430M with its HD3000 and 4GB 1333MHz ram be enough to do 1080p on the laptop (hdmi to tv)? Or would I have to opt for one with discrete gfx?

I am about to order this CPU/MOBO/VGA Combo for my budget HTPC build:

- MSI H61MA-E35 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H61 with SATA 3 and USB 3 ($60 ish)
- Intel Celeron G530 ($50 ish)
- Galaxy 43GGS8HX3SPZ GeForce GT 430 ($25 AR)

I already have ddr3 1600 RAM, case, SATA 3 SSD and BD drive.

I would appreciate if you could comment on the choice of components for primarily for BD playback, HD streaming and occasional ripping. No gaming what so ever. I have a separate NAS box for storage.

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried the scaling slider in catalyst panel?

Stepping up my high-bread file server/PC. I have been running a software RAID 5 solution on a Gigabyte AMD MB but I am just not happy with the drive performance on the 7 1.5T drive array (looking to expand to 15 - 20 drives once drive prices get back to normal). Other than severing files the only other thing the server is tasked with is serving up a HDMI feed for a bedroom TV.

I am looking to move up to a HW RAID solution utilizing Intel RAID Expander Card (RES2SV240) & LSI SAS9260-4I but will alos be running a video card.

I need a MB that will support PCI Express x4 for the Intel card, PCI-Express 2.0 x8 for the LSI card and PCI-Express 2.0 x16 for the video card. Don't plan on using the MB SATA connections other than running a SSD boot drive a Blu-ray player.

Recommendations?

Thanks for the feed back renethx. I am currently using a GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H MB with a AMD Athlon II X4 Processor (3.0 GHZ) but I was thinking I need to replace it to get the PCIE slots I needed. After reading this I am not so sure I need to.

The MB has HDMI out but will the CPU support it? I would end up serving up HD movies and a HDMI feed from the same server. I do this now but most of the video is off loaded to the GPU...

hi,
im thinking of buying this AsRock ION 3D (£290) http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overvie...%203D%20Series

I have a few questions though:

1- this issue about bitstreaming DTS/True HD is bugging me. I read this in a review by anandtech: 'The ASRock ION 3D lost points for two reasons. The first and the greatest offender was the inability to bitstream high-end codecs such as TrueHD and several DTS variations.'

Now. What does this mean?
I plan to connect this AsRock PC to my AV receiver via optical out, for the audio. Is the above passage saying that the Asrock PC won't be able to send the audio thats playing on a bluray disc which has TrueHD to my AV receiver?

2- Can i build an equivalent or better system for £300-£350?

3 - will it be able to cope with the most demanding bluray films, with the highest bitrates?

My only use for this htpc is for 1080p bluray films (dont care about 3D). And i want the true audio thats on the bluray film, whatever it may be, dts, TrueHD etc. (which i know my AV receiver can decode).

would really appreciate answers to these questions. thanks!

Real good to know. Thanks again

If Intel Atoms can have the HD3000 or HD4000 that would make an awesome HTPC.

Any ideas why I can't get DTS-HD to work with the LAV filters bitstreaming?

I can get it to work with FFDshow.

Unless my receiver is just lying to me?

How did you output 23.976 Hz on your Llano test setups, please? I have Catalyst 12.1 installed on my A8-3850 system, but the lowest refresh rate I can set with the default setup is 25 Hz.

Thanks, I eventually intend to use it with a 120Hz LCD TV which I believe handles 24p film by repeating the frame 5 times, so it should work. It's not currently attached to that display though (I'm setting it up with a basic PC monitor) so that's probably why I don't see the option :-)

Noob alert. Okay I'm generally unhappy with overall performance of media streamers. Different ones have different strengths but none are solid for HD video and HD audio over the wide range of codecs, BD menus and such. I was looking at the dunes, and by the time I spend that much, I could build my own, I think. This thread is overwhelming, and it will take me 3 months of Sundays just to get caught up over the last 18 months.

What's the cheapest combo of parts to playback all HD audio (bitstream only) and all popular US HD codecs and frame rates for the best possible 2D video and audio including menus? I have a separate server and need no onboard HDD's other than an SSD for OS and software and a gigabit controller. I may or may not need a BD reader at this point, and I have no interest in 3D at this time in my life.

Also what HT software are most people running these days? I have begun reading some older guides and will buy the new one soon.

I'm sure this has already been discussed so feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

This was a great post.

Thanks

Is AMD's UVD 3 video engine really old technology compared to Nvidia Pure Video's VP5?
Also how does Intel's HD3000 compare to them?

If you will only use your GPU as a renderer and not a hardware decoder then how would these video engines affect your image quality? I think for deinterlacing I only need IVTC.

You will be happy. No worries.

Hey renethx

If I'm building an i3-2105 in a Asus Z68 motherboard and want to get madVR to run at it's best... it would cost me the same to upgrade from my 1333 DDR3 RAM to 2133 as it would to upgrade to a low profile video card like the Asus GT 430. Would the video card accomplish what the 2133 RAM + 2105 overclocking would accomplish? Basically, if I was skiddish about overclocking, could adding a video card net me the same results?

Thanks for the response!

So if I'm not as concerned with 2d-3d conversion, would this:

http://216.52.208.185/Product/Produc...82E16814121397

improve SD rendering through madVR with my i3-2105 + Asus P8Z68-M Pro + DDR3-1333 without needing to overclock the CPU?

And from what I can tell with the card, I'll still get 3D video out and HDMI audio as I would with just the motherboard's HDMI out to my 3D TV.

Awesome. Thank you so much!

OK, I got the LSI 9260 and the intel port expander installed. Set up the initial RAID 5 with 1.5Tx6 drives, set up in win 7 and ran some tests. Very pleased with the results compared to the software RAID solution I was running. Figured out how to add another drive into the existing drive group and started up the process to expand the group with another 1.5T drive. 8 hours later, 5% completed, estimated time to completion 130 hours

Seems incredibly slow and I am concerned that the time to completion is dependent on the size of the drive being added and the size of the drive group. I was only looking to add 1 drive to the group and when I tried to create a new virtual drive under a new group, the only RAID option was RAID 0, not what I was looking for. I assume that I would have had to be adding at least 3 drives to get a RAID 5 option to show up under a new virtual drive..

Is there a better (faster) way of doing this? Does the length of time to add another drive to the group increase with the size of the ARRAY?